Blue Fescue
Festuca glauca
Tight blue pincushions for the front of a dry bed — wet winters, not cold ones, are what kill them.
Light Full sun is essential.
Water Drought tolerant once settled in.
Height 30 cm
Spread 11.8 in
Spacing 30 cm
Root depth 8–24 in
- Type
- Grass · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Blue-green
- Sunlight
- Full sun is essential.
- Watering
- Drought tolerant once settled in.
- Feeding
- No feeding required.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- June
- Pruning
- Comb the dead material out in spring, and no more than that.
- Overwintering
- Cold is no trouble to it; wet is.
- Mar–Jun Spring Growth
- Jun–Aug Flowering
- Aug–Dec Growing
- Jan–Mar Growing
- Plant spacing
- 11.8 in
- In-row spacing
- 11.8 in
- Between rows
- 15 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- A dense fibrous mat
- Working depth
- 8–24 in
- Can reach
- 5 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 12–24 in across, about 1–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 12 in of soil
Thousands of fine roots knit the top of the soil into a turf, which is what holds a bank together and what makes an established clump so hard to lift. Prairie grasses send a few roots far below the mat as well.
The habit is Blue Fescue’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Root & crown rot Crown rot in a wet winter — the usual killer.
- Center die-back after three or four years; divide it or start again.
- The blue color washes out in rich soil.
Grasses, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com